From dust to flesh

Mapping the path of restorative justice through a transcorporeal reading of Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s Dust Child

Bibliographic Data

ID19487809
AuthorsJ Jeni Jovitha (Vellore Institute of Technology University), Daisy Gohain (0000-0003-0873-0203, Vellore Institute of Technology University)
Year2026
Volume11
Pages1816441-1816441
Publication date2026-06-16
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFrontiers in Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2297-7775 • E-ISSN: 2297-7775
PublisherFrontiers Media SA (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.3389/fsoc.2026.1816441
PMID42381661
OpenAlexW7164902818
LanguageEN
References cited12

Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai’s Dust Child (2023) provides a transgenerational narrative of the Vietnam civil war repercussions in the context of restorative justice, offering a critical discussion of how first-person accounts serve as a sociological tool for storytelling, testimony, and reconciliation within post-war Vietnam. Methodologically situated within a sociology of literature framework, this research article utilizes a multi-layered theoretical approach combining Rob Nixon’s Slow Violence, Stacy Alaimo’s Transcorporeality, and John Braithwaite’s Restorative Justice, supplemented by frameworks of Trauma and Testimonial Witnessing. Through this lens, the study evaluates the bodily trauma of Phong, an Amerasian child, Dan, an American Veteran, and war-survivors Trang and Quỳnh, revealing how the novel depicts embodied and ecological trauma as a site of collective social and moral accountability. The textual results demonstrate that slow violence persists across bodies, landscapes, and generations while actively challenging the historical silence surrounding chemical warfare.

Context (archaeology) · Embodied cognition · Narrative · Reflexivity · Restorative justice · Silence · Situated · Storytelling · Testimonial · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access